


The Hardest Fight Of All

by MagpieMorality



Series: Writepie Prompt Fills [108]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Emotional self-harm, Gen, Guardian Angel Remus, Guardian Angels, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, Metaphorical only, Self-Esteem Issues, Unreliable Narrator, Watch out if you're sensitive to very blunt discussions about mental health, You may disagree with some of the opinions shared in this that's fine, negativity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23874664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagpieMorality/pseuds/MagpieMorality
Summary: Prompt:Platonic intruality with Remus as Patton’s guardian angel... If I may add one more thing, could it be hurt comfort?
Relationships: Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Writepie Prompt Fills [108]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638634
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49





	The Hardest Fight Of All

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: The tags are important on this one. Discussions of mental health, unreliable narrator, what might be construed as bad handling of an individual with mental health issues. It is a story, and not an instruction booklet.

Patton Abbot didn't deserve his guardian angel. No really. He was sure he was nice enough, and he tried to be kind to everyone he could and forgive anyone that did him harm, but he didn't deserve a guardian angel for that! He wasn't in much danger, he didn't have a lot to complain about, with his perfectly normal life and normal parents and normal school. He even had normal friends! It felt selfish to have a guardian angel when he wasn't suffering at all really, and he hadn't earned it through doing anything particularly _good_ either. 

His guardian angel loudly, passionately and _regularly_ disagreed, but Patton had yet to be convinced. Remus was lovely, but there were so many more deserving people that needed his help! He was flattered Remus seemed to enjoy being his guardian angel and hanging around with him but it was probably only because he was forced, and Patton was good at acting nice so at least he hoped he wasn't making the angel's job too awful. 

That was if you asked Patton, at least. Remus would have a different perspective on things. But Patton hadn't... actually asked him? Because he was so obviously lying when he insisted Patton _did_ deserve his presence and protection, because Patton _didn't deserve it_. 

Over time though, something changed. Remus started to lose his glow, his wings began to droop and he stopped skipping and floating around above the ground, steps dragging heavier and heavier on the floor. Patton was terrified, constantly checking in with him because Remus was too important to feel bad, or get sick, or whatever it was that was happening! Patton had to help him! 

When he woke up one morning to find Remus leaning on the windowsill, gazing despondently out at the garden and the rest of the houses he started to really panic. He had to be hurting the angel somehow, but how?! And how could he fix it?!

"Remus? What- what's up bud? You know you can always talk to me right? I think you're awesome, and you deserve to be happy!"

"I'm not so sure."

"You do!" Patton insisted, placing a hand between his wing joints on his back. "You do so much good, you're always taking care of me and you're so kind and lovely and fun and you-"

"It's taken me a while, you know," Remus interrupted. Patton went quiet apart from a soft, questioning hum. "To figure out why I was sent to you."

Ah. "Well it must have been a mistake, like I said before, but that's okay, you can consider-"

"Patton for the love of the sky and the stars; _shut up_." 

Patton shut up, trying not to let the harshness hurt. He knew he'd been babbling on a bit, so it was probably his own fault, and after all even angels only had a certain amount of patience. And Patton knew he was annoying. But it still hurt just a little bit. 

Remus rounded on him, eyes alight for the first time in weeks. He grabbed Patton by the shoulders and steered him back to the bed, sitting him down on the edge firmly and moving back to pace in front of him. Patton waited, still conscious of the reprimand, until Remus finally burst. 

"I can't believe it took me so long! Honestly, I wasn't sure there was much to do here; you seemed so happy so much of the time, and you get along with almost everyone! Sure there's the odd bully, but its only ever in situations you put yourself into knowing they'll come, like that video channel thing of yours, and I suppose I assumed you realised you could just leave if you didn't want to see it all. You were so nice to them, too nice! But even when I visited them, sorted that out for you, or got you to spend time away from it, you were still... so _hurt_. And now, _now_ I see the true problem. It's worse than I thought, and I'm- I'm so _sorry_ I didn't see before, but I'm also angry, and it's not at you but it _is_ -"

Unsurprising, Patton thought. That made sense, after all.

"Because the evil that I'm supposed to battle for you... is _you_."

Slightly more surprising. "Come again?" Patton asked, apologising quickly for speaking up. Remus bared his teeth as fury flashed over his face, flaring bright again for a moment. He looked... terrifying, but glorious. An angel in battle. 

"There is no greater threat to you than yourself. And I don't know how to fight that! I'm angry because I'm sad; why would you attack yourself so viciously day after day, hour after hour, word after word and never afford yourself a single iota of the kindness you afford others?!" He stopped, chest heaving, and Patton felt the weight of an expected answer. He couldn't reply, just shrugging, which only set Remus off again. "You, the nasty horrible thing inside you, it's killing you! You feel like you're dying, and you just _let it happen_. I don't- I don't know how to fight that, I don't think I _can_ fight that, and you just- " He growled, his morningstar appearing, only partially there, for him to swing in fury. "Everything they say to you that you rail against in public, you bite back against if those very words are turned on your friends with no mercy, you say the same things in your own head. You are so awful to yourself, you're _just like them_! I cant fight that!" 

Patton swallowed. "It's not a big deal," he said weakly, heart hammering in his ribcage. 

" _But it is_! And I can't do my job if you're the one stopping me at every turn! You don't even know you're _doing_ it, or maybe you do and just pretend you don't, I'm not even sure anymore. But you desire so much better, why can't you take your own damn advice?! I don't- I don't think you even _want_ to feel better sometimes, you've turned your suffering into so much of your identity. Do you actually like being this way...?" He cut off, narrowing his eyes at Patton suspiciously. Patton felt part of him squirm under that gaze, but another small part was quietly begging for the angel to go on, to finish lancing this horrid, deep-seated, ancient boil of Bad.

"It's not fair!" Remus finished. "You're doing it to yourself! Do you know how easy that is to stop?!" 

Those were the words that finally got Patton up on his feet. Because no matter the truth of the rest of it; that was a lie. "It's not easy! It's not!" Thoughts of therapy and mental health diagnoses and the difficult of facing everything alone when it was easier to just suffer and frame it in martyrdom and help everyone and hope, pray that one day someone would help him too. 

_(And then push it away away away when that same help was offered back, falling into misery when that endless push- desperately testing his friends to their limits because he knew they'd get tired eventually- turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy as they ran out of support to throw against his walls of self-hatred and negativity)_

Remus stepped forwards until they were chest to chest, gazing down from his height, fully blazing bright in the innocuous setting of Patton's bedroom. "But it is. If you _want_ to."

Patton sat down again with a thump, feeling faint and nauseous. There was a moment of silence before he burst into tears, pulling his knees up to hide his face in. He wasn't even sure why he was crying. Because of the horrible cruel words? Because he didn't deserve even this harsh kindness (that felt like staring at the sun without protection or touching electricity, raw and painful and unfiltered for his comfort) after how awful he'd been? Because... because it felt terrible to even _think_ about the fact that this could be _his fault_ in some way?! And now Remus hated him just like the rest and he was going to leave and Patton would be alone and-

Two warm, gentle hands came up to cup his face and tilt it back into view, and Remus was there, looking stern and serious but not angry anymore. The relief that flooded through Patton was almost euphoric, like the weight of the entire sky lifted back up off his lungs. "I can't fight this battle alone, Patton," the angel said. "And I can't fight it at all if you don't truly, deeply, one hundred percent want me to fight it. To do that you need to understand that it's your battle too, that you have to put your armour on and go to war alongside me, if we're to have any chance at success. Because right now you're on their side, and you're sabotaging us from within."

"But it's my condition! My brain doesn't-"

"You think I don't know about that?" Remus frowned, rubbing his cheeks gently. "You've got medication. You've got a therapist, you have people who are trying their hardest to love and support you. But you can't survive the ocean on a raft of other people's making. It will stop you sinking, for a time- perhaps even for a _long_ time, but you won't get any closer to shore unless you start to paddle. And as you paddle you'll also have to patch up any cracks in the raft with your own hands, perhaps with the materials you're given but the work to stitch it all together and sail it has to be your own. It's- I'm not a fan of metaphors but do you see? You can't be the only one not contributing to your own recovery."

"I'm not recovering from anything, I just have a negative self image and... and some other things. But they're bad! They're not things you get _better_ from-" Patton tried, voice trembling and weak. Remus just looked at him, hands still on his face. 

"Aren't they?" He asked simply. "You don't think you could ever manage to feel better than you do right now? You think all the stories of people improving their lives are... made up? You think, perhaps, that the medication is all a placebo, that once you've labelled the problem it's made permanent and nothing can ameliorate the symptoms or make life easier to live?" The angel leaned in and dropped a kiss to Patton's forehead, leaving a warm tingling in its wake. "The world would burn, if that were true," he whispered, before standing up. 

Patton just kept on sitting in silence, face itching as his tears started to dry on his skin. 

Remus gave him a small but real smile. "You've got plenty to think about. Consider my pitch; without you I will continue to fight the war, hopeless though it may be, but with you..." He grinned properly then. "Oh the things we could achieve, dear one."

And off he vanished, in a flutter of feathers and the sound of moving light. 

It left Patton feeling as though, in the space of only maybe half an hour, the entire world had changed around him. He wondered, as he lay down on his bed, exhausted and reaching for his favourite plushie for comfort, whether what Remus said was what his therapist secretly wanted to say. It was a funny thought, mild-mannered Dr Picani ranting like the passionate angel, but Patton barely managed a lift of his lips. He needed to rest, and then he'd start to think about all this. If it wasn't true, if the angel was mistaken, seeing things that weren't there because of how boring it was being Patton's guardian; then nothing really needed to change except he would renew his efforts to get Remus reassigned. 

If it was true though? Then that changed _everything_ , and Patton Abbott would have a lot of hard work ahead.

He wished he knew which one he was hoping for.


End file.
